RIDEBACK – 02

After the wild Rideback ride and jump, Rin is given the form to join the club by members Hishida and Kawai, but her friend Shouko first makes the guys apologize for putting her in danger. Rin is intrigued enough to return to the club once more, and this time, she finds a green Rideback there. It belongs to a woman named Kataoka Tamayo who has done her research on Rin’s background, and she challenges Rin to a race. If Rin wins, she can use the Rideback whenever she wants, but if she loses, she’ll have to be Tamayo’s servant. Rin isn’t sure whether or not to do it, and before deciding, she calls up her little brother Kenji. As it turns out, Kenji already knows who Tamayo is because of her fame as a Rideback racer. This leads to Rin doing more reading on Ridebacks, including their Spread Legs Form. On the outside, she claims not to want to race, but her memories of her Rideback experience causes her heart to beat faster.

On the day of the race, Rin decides to show up after all. Tamayo gives her a one lap handicap, meaning that Rin has to complete three laps before Tamayo completes four, and they first take some time to familiarize themselves with the course around school. Tamayo is confident that she’ll win, but she sees a connection between herself and Rin because of how Rin took the challenge. Rin, however, explains that she wanted to see what kind of level a racing champion is at. Because of this, Tamayo decides to give Rin an additional lap as a handicap in exchange for starting the race right there, but this is derailed when they find part of the course blocked temporarily, so they start officially from the front of the club. Soon after, Tamayo has her Rideback go to Spread Legs Form, and she’s able to gain a sizable lead. Rin attempts the same thing, but the handling around corners is too much for her, and she crashes into the water.

Although she and the Fuego are wet, Rin is okay and decides to continue the race. She waits for the next time Tamayo passes this point and then starts pursuing her again. Rin manages to pass Tamayo this time, and with a pair of successive 90-degree turns coming up, she returns the Fuego to Standing Form and performs a twirling ballet-style jump that gets her past the turns and allows her to accelerate again immediately afterward. Tamayo is so amazed by what she sees that she doesn’t realize that there’s a cat on the road until it’s almost too late, and she crashes while trying to avoid hitting it. Tamayo is able to get out of this with only a light concussion, and afterward, she decides that Rin should enter an official race. Rin still isn’t sure if all this is okay, but Shouko tells her that it suits her.

Preview

Well, animation-wise, I was glad to see that there wasn’t an immediate drop in quality this week – the race was pretty exciting and the episode had a number of great-lookingshots. Story-wise, despite all the political turmoil and unrest going on in the background, this episode really makes RIDEBACK feel like a sports series. It’s got the main character starting to be enthralled by the world of Ridebacks, and her first competitive challenge completely pulls her in. She’s even going to enter a big race in the next episode. I say all this not as a criticism of sports series in general – which, like this, can be quite good at pulling audiences in – but as an observation about how the story of this anime adaptation is being developed compared to the manga which had a bit more of the political stuff spilling into the university life by this point. Granted, a lot of the political stuff in the manga was quite confusing at first, so I’m not saying that the manga was perfect and that the anime should be following it exactly. I’m just very curious to see where the focus of the anime goes as it continues on because this will only be 12 episodes total. I’m sure it won’t just be about Rin becoming a great Rideback racer with her ballet talents.

Yeah, but Omni, usually even getting to the first event in a sports anime takes upwards of ten episodes at least (Slam Dunk as an example) which are used for training sequences and getting too know the rest of the team and the competition etc. At least in this case they aren’t taking an overly long time, but realistically and especially if it follows the usual formula of sports anime she should get pretty badly beaten in her race as a result.

The only reason I can see that they are skipping through the political aspects from the manga would be to consolidate them and glue them all together near the middle-end in order to have some sort of an ending and to end with big impacts. This would be a bad series if it just ends up being a typical sports anime since the main draw was the political conflicts (and the main theme as well). At this point, we can only hope for the best.

One other noticeable difference is that Rin seems more easy-going compared to the manga; she joined a the club with less fuss and without any qualms about ‘stinky, greasy mecha-otaku,’ so they seem to be doing quite a bit of plot compressing on all aspects to get more into their limited time…

Well I for one would dislike political stuff being driven into this show, but I do agree there is a limit to how far it can get if it went down the bike sports route. Still, too much military or political action would ruin this, so I hope they blend it all nicely within the next 10 episodes.

So far the mix of political stuff with sporty stuff is alright. I mean we’re still on the second episode here. We still have the small buzz in the background (mostly the TV) reminding us of the other parts constantly. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.

@Shin Zero
Think the only reason she could pass her on the straight part was because Tamayo was holding back the speed so she wouldn’t crash on the turns, whereas Rin had that jump in mind so she didn’t need to brake. Just my guess.

I like the animation quality and the protagonist’s backstory, but everything else is meh. The character design in my opinion is terrible, I mean, honestly, the best friend with the tooth? It fits in so well with other characters in other shows (Lucky Star etc.) but on her it seems pretty much forced.

This anime is absolutely darling of the season! I think the character design is acceptable. I just feel funny that Tamayo is a French literature major. Perhaps this gives a hint to the plot that a revolution is brewing? :-)

This is one of those few anime that just pumps you up! You feel the excitement as tho you were their in the race itself! 10/10 in my book thus far hope it doesn’t let me down, even tho I highly doubt it.